Text font research for title sequence

The research I have done suggests that the colour of text used in most horror film title sequences is white, red and/or black in complete contrast to the background it is put in front of making it stand out clearly, emphasising death, loneliness and fear. The different font colours can also be used together, to represent what the film may entail e.g. Insidious 2 use red and white to convey death, danger and loneliness or separation.

After watching a large amount of horror films growing up and for my research I have come to the conclusion that white is a very popular colour when it comes to editing fonts in titles sequences, and I believe this is because the majority of horror films involve the darkness and white, although conveys loneliness, also conveys the fact that there is still hope and acts as a light against this dark background. This poplar choice of artificial low key lighting in horror films makes it hard to see and uses people fear of the dark against them and allows the text to be the light in the darkness revealing the names of the people who helped produces the film and a slight insight into the psyche. The editors are extremely obsessive and make sure important things in the frame are not concealed from the audiences eyes.

The colour black is not used so much to fill the body of the text but the outline, either being part of the background itself or bordering it to help the text stand out in shots that use high key lighting, however the opposite can also be seen done in a few horror films. A rare example is this image:

I have also noticed that the fonts have a specific shape to them to help represent what type of horror film it is, is it gruesome, gory, brutal, hypnotising, or threatening. The editors do this by sharpening the edges of letters or giving them a more block like structure and it is also common that they are designed to be curvy or old English. Here are a few examples of fonts that we could use in our title sequence, i decided to print screen them for reference.

Source of image: www.fontspace.com

Lastly, as you can see above some of the examples make use of capital lettering on all or a few of the letters making them stand out  more and seem more important, catching the eyes of the audience and giving them a taste of what the film may entail. When editing we will make a collective decision on what font style we are going to use. It is also important to note that the font picked must be consistent throughout the title sequence and not vary drastically, but only in size. 

Here are a few examples of fonts in horror films I looked at: